Prospective students from 154 different grade schools and 62 different zip codes filled the halls of Saint Louis U. High for Open House last Sunday. This annual admissions event gives prospective students the opportunity to tour the school, talk to teachers and coaches, and interact with some clubs.

A little more than 260 families attended the event, down from last year’s 300. Out of these families, 64 percent were seventh graders, 22 percent were eighth graders, eleven percent were sixth graders, and three percent were fifth graders.

“The slight decrease in families is probably due to the other opportunities there are to visit SLUH,” said Assistant Director of Admissions Adam Cruz. “For example, we had more people at SLUH Night than we have ever had before and many people do Inside SLUH visits.”

Approximately 160 different tour guides showed prospective students the school while sharing their experiences.

“I can vividly remember being in the same position as many of the middle schoolers that I guided around school,” said junior Thomas Hartnagel. “It was an awesome feeling to show them the school with the same excitement that I admired in my tour guide when I was in eighth grade. That admiration ultimately led me to choose SLUH.”

In addition to the tour guides, the tour featured experts in science, robotics and Fine Arts.

“I think having specific Fine Arts tour guides is very effective because we can share personal experiences. Also, we can actually entice the prospective students who have an interest in the theatre department rather than have tour guides who aren’t enthusiastic about theatre,” said junior Pierce Hastings.

The biggest change to this year’s Open House was that not all of the clubs were represented in the Commons. Clubs were required to apply to have a table so that they could guarantee to be active during the event.

“In the past, we gave every club a table which led to the Commons being very crowded and some clubs not having very much activity going on,” said Director of Admissions Anja Schmelter.

“The Commons was rocking with clubs getting prospective students engaged in various ways,” said Cruz. “I felt that the spirit of the event was a lot better this year with clubs interacting with students through chess, ping pong, sno-cones, and various other activities.”

Many students and faculty believe that this change led to a more fun and personal Open House experience.